The Physics Of Duns Scotus

Duns Scotus, along with Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, was one of the three most talented and influential of the medieval schoolmen, and a highly original and creative thinker. Natural philosophy, or physics, is one of the areas of his system which has not received detailed attention in modern literature.

But it is important, both for understanding Scotus's contributions in theology, and in tracing some important developments in the basically Aristotelian world-view which Scotus and his contemporaries espoused. The book contains detailed discussion and analysis of Scotus's accounts of the nature of matter; the structure of material substance; mass; the nature of space, time, and motion; quantitative and qualitative change; and the various sorts of unity which can be exhibited by different kinds of whole.

It also includes discussion of Scotus's accounts of chemical composition, organic unity, and nutrition. Scotus's views on these matters are philosophyically sophisticated, and often highly original. Review: Cross's book is extremely dense and rich both exegetically and philosophically. Though his approach is primarily exegetical, Cross also succeeds in showing that many aspects of Scotus physics are of more than historical interest.

There is also little doubt that Cross's book greatly contributes to our knowledge of Aristotelian natural philosophy in the late Middle Ages. It should be read by anyone seriously interested in Scotus and/or medieval physics. Cecilia Trifogli, Journal of Theological Studies, Vol.51 No.1